Aquino Fastest in Daytona SportBike

By Henny Ray Abrams | 5/14/2010 5:58 PM

SONOMA, CA, MAY 14: Team Graves Yamaha's Tommy Aquino took the provisional pole position with a dominant performance in Daytona SportBike qualifying at Infineon Raceway.Aquino lapped the 2.52-mile track in 1:38.440, a time that was fastest by nearly half a second. And also more than a second faster than last year's pole time of 1:39.518.The Yamaha rider did the time by himself, which he said he prefers."I go faster by myself really," he said. "No one around, even if I have to give up maybe that motivation or draft of someone in front of me. I just like going out there and putting down hot laps. It's just fun. The Yamaha works really good around this track. It's just a fun racetrack."Aquino said that Infineon Raceway was similar to Road Atlanta, with multiple elevation changes and flowing turns. "This is the same, it's just the elevation changes and turns are a little bit tighter," he said.Also tighter were the times behind Aquino. Latus Racing's Steve Rapp, who raced regularly at Sears Point while growing up in Northern California, put the Ducati second on the grid in between the Yamaha teammates. Team Graves Yamaha's Josh Herrin was third fastest, just .2 of a second behind Rapp and only .045 secs. in front of Geico Powersports/RMR Racing's Danny Eslick (Suz).Project 1 Atlanta's Dane Westby was another .044 of a second back on the row two pole and less than a tenth in front of Lenny Hale (Yam). Road Atlanta double winner Martin Cardenas qualified seventh on the Monster M4 Suzuki. Westby's teammate Clinton Seller filled out the second row.

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.